


evergreen

by actualflower



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Flashbacks, PTSD RECOVERY, Pet Friends Best Friends, SO much comfort.... i live for the comfort, Trauma Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 18:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21166013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualflower/pseuds/actualflower
Summary: Starkness keeps walking.(A post-game perspective from the Emissary of Death.)





	evergreen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Allycatsub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allycatsub/gifts).

> a year out from the end of this DND game, i've decided to post this piece. it means a lot to me, personally -- both the piece, and the game. i met the love of my life in this game, and i learned a lot about myself and who i am and want to be. starkness is my first dnd character i ever made, and this is from the first dnd game i ever played, and it's got a lot of references to things that happened, but i think it stands well on its own. 
> 
> additional warnings:  
oblique references to suicidal ideation, PTSD, CSA, flashbacks to traumatic events, and a single mention of child death/fratricide. mentions of death throughout, in both personal and impersonal contexts. if you'd like more specifics, please don't hesitate to contact me.
> 
> a tldr;
> 
> starkness is a blind tiefling ranger who has been through a lot, but this mostly deals with the trauma faced by 'meeting' a family she thought abandoned her at birth, only to have them revealed as a facade to lure her in by lolth, along with dealing with being the Emissary of the Aspect of Death. she also has severe CPTSD stemming from CSA/abuse in general as a child, which is... *also* lolth's fault, in a roundabout way. this is all referenced in the piece in vague ways. starkness is a deeply complicated woman who is trying her best in a world that is neither kind nor fair.
> 
> gifted to ally, the girl that gave me the gift of this story (and her heart). <3
> 
> (for a roll call/short explanation of who is who in this story, please check the ending note. thank you <3)

She leaves her bow, Azrathion, at the cottage. She packs it carefully atop her spare sets of armor. Each one is like a memory all its own: the jaded steel scale maille she’d threatened a shopkeep for on her first day on Nostra, the Nighthunter armor dark green and buttery-leather-soft, the honorary Shadoweaver set gifted her by Shaandara. She clears out her bag of holding, too - places each item on a shelf or in a chest, places her wallet of holding on a nearby shelf and marks it _ for the party. _

Bea is at the keep, so she doesn’t kiss her goodbye.

She picks up the pack that rests by the door, fitted with basic hunting gear - rations, tinderbox, torches, pitons, rope, bedroll, a few sets of spare clothes. She grabs her other bow, Blood & Matches, and a quiver of arrows. On her belt, five vials of Stormsinger poison sit, waiting. A bag of coins clinks on her belt, far too large to keep safe for long.

Starkness breathes once, twice, and makes her way out the door.

* * *

The bounty hunter’s guild is nothing and exactly like what she expected.

“I have a bounty to post.”

The concierge nods, holds out a hand. Starkness drops a bag of platinum on the counter instead.

“A platinum a head. Anyone wearing the mark of Lolth. In perpetua. Post it everywhere.”

The concierge nods again. “Anything else, my lady?”

Starkness walks out.

* * *

She doesn’t tell anyone where she’s going. She has a feeling they already know why she’s gone. Lolth had - had broken her. She can’t trust herself around them. Not anymore.

One more victory for the dead Spider Queen.

Her companions walk with her, sometimes, even though she never commanded them to come with her; much the opposite, actually. She told them to leave, that night, standing over her tormentor's, Gathus, the man she'd named her bird for, body in that castle-now-crypt.

_ Want to be near you, _Titan tells her over their bond, and the rest of them echo the sentiment.

She just nods. Night had fallen hours ago, and she stirs the fire with a stick and imagines how the embers look against the night sky. Titan is a warm weight against her back, with Belle and Goldrinn at either side. Distantly, she hears Gathus-the-bird give a piercing cry to the moon as he circles overhead. Fury and Lockheed are higher, farther away.

She settles in to sleep. That night, she dreams of warm, wet blood on her fingers, and wakes to Goldrinn draped protectively over her lap, rumbling snore vibrating down into her bones. She digs her fingers into the ruff of fur at his neck and steadies her breathing.

* * *

Her beasts trade off after that. She never spends the night alone, not while she hunts.

* * *

When she finds the village, it is barely a month into her hunting. Spring growth is sweet in the air. Gathus flies overhead, always watching where she cannot.

She loosens the hood over her head - the _ shaed _ is her greatest asset now, shield and cloak and shadow in one, making her impossible to find in the dark where the rest of Lolth’s followers work, and she knows the use of a good cloak when traveling: blanket, rain shield, sun protector, among other things; they are few and far between, and she would not be parted with hers. Not unless someone had a suitable replacement. The sun warms her horns and kisses the tops of her dark cheeks.

She follows the sounds she hears, buys a crumbly little dry pastry from a vendor with some of her copper and some juice to wash it down. She finds a patch of shade in an alley by way of how the sun feels on her skin and sits down to enjoy her bounty. She doesn’t know exactly where she is, but if she had to guess, she’s made it to Sorthros. Towards the north, too. She’s been making good time.

Between the _ shaed _ and shadows, she doesn’t notice someone standing over her until she hears them clear their throat. She nearly drops the pastry in her hand in her haste to stand. The juice spills out onto the ground when she turns the cup in her hand, brandishing the edge like a cutting weapon. Instinct sharpens her mental picture of the scene in front of her: two individuals, both a few inches taller than her, one more wiry than the other -

They haven’t moved. Starkness stays poised, wound snake-tight. She’s been expecting this. She’s been _ waiting _ for them to make a move, instead of just hunting them down like ants instead of _ spiders - _

“Excuse me,” says a warm voice, even and careful, and Starkness would take offense at being spoken to like a frightened animal if she weren’t numb to the condescension by this point. “My daughter recognized you, and I thought I’d introduce myself and invite you to dinner.”

Starkness hears the other one shuffle and murmur, “Told you she’d be jumpy,” and the voice is far too familiar after all that’s happened. She’s heard it call her heartless a thousand times before. Starkness is certain Unavu is spitefully pleased to be proven right after all.

“I’m Patrin Ruta. Unavu tells me you two are - colleagues.” His stance shifts, hand moving from where it was held behind his back to extend in greeting. Starkness doesn’t miss how it gives him firmer footing on the ground and places him a little more in front of Unavu.

Starkness stares at them both blankly, right between both of them. She’s given up the pretense of weakness, of _ slightly to the left _. “Pleasure to meet you. I’m leaving.”

She tries to brush past him, but he rests a gentle calloused hand on her wrist. “Please. I’d love to get to know who Unavu speaks so highly of.”

She scoffs. “You’re mistaking me for someone else, then. Sprout or T or Lief. They’re the good ones.”

He shakes his head firmly. “I don’t think Unavu has another blind tiefling friend, Starkness. Please.” His tone is warm, paternal, and brooks no argument.

Starkness sighs. Unavu makes a sound like victory, and she scowls in the dragonborn’s direction. “...Alright,” she acquiesces. One night can’t hurt. She’ll be gone by tomorrow, anyway.

Maybe Diagoros, where there won’t be any chance of stray colleagues finding her.

* * *

The first night hurts.

Not in any way Starkness can name, no - it hurts in all the little ways that shouldn’t, like how Mishann Ruta laughs every time Unavu says something innocently snarky, or the paternal frown she hears in Patrin’s voice for the same. Food is passed around with easy familiarity, and Starkness doesn’t ask for seconds but gets them anyway, and thirds go down as easy as seconds and firsts.

She misses, with sudden fierceness, Sprout and T. She closes her eyes behind her blindfold, lets her shoulders slump forward just a touch - T would be flinging food at her mouth with unbelievably bad aim, and she’d toss rolls and potatoes and little cherry tomatoes at T’s mouth unerringly, and Sprout would chastise them both but she’d never be mad, not really, not while they’re both laughing, and Bea would be in the kitchen making something sweet-but-not-too-sweet, just how Starkness likes it -

A hand on her shoulder makes her flinch, but as soon as she’s aware of her surroundings, the hand disappears.

“Come on, dear. We’ve got the guest bed made up.” Mishann’s soothing voice carries to her ear, and she nods and reaches up to clear her plate - but it’s already gone. So, she stands, walking a pace behind Unavu’s mother, and nearly trips on the carpeted floor in the foyer.

Mishann is there in an instant, soft hands gripping her elbow with gentle strength, and as soon as she is steady, Mishann lets go, right before Starkness would have shrugged her off.

“...Thank you,” she says, despite herself.

“I should be apologizing, not warning you like that - ah, here we are, dear.”

The ‘guest bed’, as it turns out, is just the couch, done up in cushions and pillows and blankets. “Lavish, isn’t it?” Mishann says, mirth in her voice. “Make yourself at home. A friend of Unavu’s is a friend of ours, alright?”

Starkness nods slowly, as if in a dream. She sits down on the couch and nestles among the blankets, only remembering to say ‘Thank you, Mishann’ when the woman is nearly at the doorway. It feels far too much like pretending at personhood, instead of just being a weapon.

“No problem, dear. Get some rest.”

Starkness tucks herself in and tumbles headlong into a dream.

* * *

She wakes, an hour later, to sweat-flushed skin and adrenaline in her veins - and quiet shuffling in the kitchen a room away. She gets up, not bothering to wipe the sweat from her face, and wanders as carefully as she can towards the quiet tinkling of cups and spoons.

She smells the tea before she smells the odd ozone scent that lingers about Patrin. Starkness waits at the door frame, lingering like a ghost.

“Can’t sleep?” His voice is quiet, not uncomfortable, pitch low and rough with sleep as if he’s just awoken, himself. She nods. “Here. I made enough for two.” He slides a teacup towards the edge of the table closest to her. She hears the scrape of the teacup, the rustle of cloth from his sleeve as his arm moves. She steps forward, still feeling too large in her body, feeling ten years too old and two feet too tall. She settles into the chair with an awkward slump, and seeks out the cup with the edges of her fingers. The cup itself feels scalding to her palm, which she knows runs too-hot, always.

She pulls it close anyway, and doesn’t wince when the sip burns her tongue.

The tea is sweet, but barely so, and gently perfumed with floral herbs. She takes another sip, just because it’s good, and she wants to, and the way it burns feels real.

Patrin sighs. “Long night?”

Starkness hums and nods.

He shuffles quietly in his seat, and she hears him take a sip. They sit together in silence for a while - long enough that Patrin stands to pour himself another cup, and refills hers when she holds it out.

Nighttime bleeds forward in a hazy smear of cognizance and tea. It could be hours or minutes later when Patrin speaks next, Starkness doesn’t know, but it does break her out of her blank, grey reverie.

“If you need somewhere to stay, the house is always open.”

Starkness hums, noncommittal. She was thinking of south next, right? Sweep down the country as thoroughly as possible, use Lockheed and Fury and Gathus to keep eyes on every county and city and village they can, watching for any sign of activity. She closes her eyes behind her blindfold. She only takes it off to finish the hunt, now.

“Unavu leaves tomorrow,” he supplies, humor coloring his tone.

Starkness sighs, thinks about all the work left to be done. “...I’ll think about it.”

* * *

The next morning, Unavu leaves. Starkness is still at the table when she passes through the kitchen in the morning, holding a cup of tea that’s long since gone cold.

Unavu tells her goodbye, and Starkness nods.

She doesn’t leave the table all day. Patrin leaves early in the morning, and he gives her a cheerful goodbye. She responds with a quiet nod. Mishann gives her food for breakfast and lunch, and tells her where any food for dinner might be (”Second cabinet on the left, the one with the knob instead of a handle.”). When she beds down to sleep, Mishann leads her from the table to the couch again, all without touching her more than a second necessary.

She doesn’t know what this is. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do here. She doesn’t know why she’s stayed - she should be hunting. The rest of her followers are out there. Starkness has to -

She sleeps, and dreams of a campfire and a sweat-soaked tent.

* * *

The first week, Starkness does nothing. Says nothing, speaking in monosyllables and nods. She can feel her beasts like extensions of her own will, distant impressions of _ hunger/chase/sleep/watch, _and she sends them her own faint impressions of quiet reassurance. They pulse back comfort along their bonds, and return to their business. Gathus stays close by, always on patrol.

But, she is sedentary. She leaves the house on the third day only to wash herself and her clothes in the washbasin outside, and when she moves to come back in, Mishann presses a set of warm, soft, well-worn clothes into her arms. They’re unfamiliar, and she instantly moves to reject them, but Mishann presses them into her hands with gentle insistence. When she puts them on, they’re a little too short on the chest, but the pants are a little too long, so she just pulls them a little higher to fix it all and doesn’t complain. She eats what is put in front of her. Moves quietly in the house and becomes as unobtrusive as possible, and fights not to scream herself awake so the other two in the house don’t wake up.

A week after she first arrives, Patrin corners her in the foyer where she sits with her knees drawn up close to her chest, staring blankly at nothing. “Starkness.”

Her head swivels to face the direction of his voice, and she nods her assent of his statement. She hears him sigh and shuffle forward, kneeling on the ground in front of her. Her head tracks the movement as best she can, but she knows she’s always a little to the left when looking at anything. “Starkness. I have some questions to ask. Can you answer them?”

Rough with disuse, she clears her throat before speaking. “Sure. I can do that.”

“Good. You’ve been here a week now, and you’ve been a very polite house guest, but if you plan on staying here longer, there are some rules and things you should know about so you don’t break them. Alright?”

Patrin’s voice is steady, even, and she loses her focus in the drone of it. She shakes her head to clear it and responds, a beat too late. “Yes. I understand.”

He nods. “Good. Rule number one: always be honest. With me, with my wife, with yourself, anyone who walks through those doors.”

Starkness nods along, not really processing what he’s saying, feeling the fugue settle in her mind and make the world a dull gray wash. Honesty? She’s never been honest a day in her life. The world doesn’t reward that with kindness, or _ survival. _ Still, Patrin seems delightfully deluded, so she’ll nod and say yes.

“-Starkness? Starkness. Are you listening?” His voice breaks through her thoughts - ah. She must have gotten distracted again. So very unlike her, and yet. Patrin isn’t prey. He doesn’t engender the focus of a hunt, nor a hunt_ er _. Starkness nods again, and Patrin sighs, as if disappointed.

“Starkness. I need you with me. I need to know you’re here.” He holds up a hand with a rustle of cloth, and she can nearly feel the heat of it where it rests an inch or so above her knees. “Give me your blindfold.”

She feels the immediate impulse to laugh in his face, so she does. He wanted honesty, after all. “That’s hilarious. No.”

“Starkness.” There’s something sharp in his tone - not enough to cut or sting, but like the tightening of a fist around a leash, a reminder of a collar. “If you want to stay here, there are rules. I need to know you’re here. I need to know you’re listening and _ trying. _” He reaches a little closer, his hand drifting a scant inch closer to where one of her own rests on her knee. “I’m going to need that blindfold. I need you to be honest with me, and to not hide your face to lie to me.”

Starkness swallows and grits her teeth. Honesty? He wants it _ that badly, _ he can _ have it. _ She tugs the blindfold from her face savagely, blinking unseeing eyes into the light of day, and imagines the shock on his face when he sees cataract-white threaded with violent gold.

Except there’s no shocked inhale or shudder or recoil. He simply takes it from her hand when she drops it onto his palm and tucks it into a pocket. He takes the time to fold it neatly, giving it care and consideration she never does. It’s a tool, a mask, a shield. It doesn’t need care. It does what it needs to do.

“Thank you, Starkness. I know that’s a lot to give up-” (she snorts) “-_ but, _ I appreciate the gesture.” He smooths his hands over his thighs, uncreasing the fabric. “Now. Rule number two: everyone contributes. I don’t mind however you chose to do this, but everyone in the house gives something towards living here.”

Ah. That’s what it is. She nods her head, more familiar with this. Of course she’d be expected to do so. No man shall suffer a freeloader, and all that.

“And rule number three: be kind. That’s all.” He pauses for a moment, then speaks again, mirth in his voice. “Well. And rule four: no swearing. I’ve heard you have a rather bad potty mouth.”

She can nearly hear him grinning, and she scowls. “Never had a problem with it before.”

“I’m sure you haven’t,” he says, entirely unconvinced and unconvincing. “But still. There are often children here, and we don’t want them picking up foul language.” He leans in, close but not too much so, and faux-whispers, “Can’t say shit until you’ve sufficiently been through it, hmm?”

“Damn right.” She can understand it, at least. “Got it. No swearing.”

She can nearly feel the heat from the warmth of his grin. “Good. Now, dinner’ll be in another hour or so. I’ll be out back if you need me, and Mishann is already in the kitchen if you need her. Alright?”

She nods.

“You here?” he jokes.

“Yes, Patrin,” she grumbles. “I’m here.”

“Good. Speak when you’re spoken to, kiddo.”

And Starkness is thrust back to that gangly little body, with a voice like bloody bitten copper and lemon juice in stings. _ “Speak when spoken to. Only then. Right now, your voice is mine, just like the rest of you.” _

She doesn’t realize she’s violently shivering until there’s the feeling of soft cloth on her shoulders, and a warm voice, entirely unlike copper-and-lemons, speaking in low tones in her ear.

“-there we go. Easy does it. Back with us, Starkness?”

She nods, confused and unsure of why she’s still shivering. She’s not there. It’s not here. It’s not _ real. _ It’s _ not- _

\- but how can she trust herself anymore? How does she know she’s not right back in that tent/that room/that crypt? How does she know this isn’t the lie, too?

Patrin puts a gentle hand on her shoulder, but when she shrugs out from under it, he removes it without complaint. “Sorry. I should have asked first. Do you want me to sit next to you, or do you want to be alone?”

She doesn’t - _ understand. _ Why is he asking these questions? Why doesn’t he just - _ do _ something? She shakes her head, and mutters, “I’m fine. Do what you want. Dinner’s in an hour.”

She doesn’t see him grimace, but she can imagine it all the same (imagine it like the rest of this, this house, these people, their kindness). Why is he so damn concerned? Why does he care? Why is she _ still shaking? _

“I’ll be just outside,” he reassures her, and she hears his steady footfalls disappear from the room, padding through the hall to the left -

\- to the _ right _ , to the kitchen, where he stops, and she hears Mishann stop, too, and they converse in tones too low for even her hearing to pick up clearly. _ Careful _ and _ patient _ and _ thank you, love you _come up a few times, and she scowls and shoves the blanket off and forcefully unbends her legs to set her feet on the floor. She breathes, long heaves of her chest forcing air in and out of her lungs in steady, inexorable rhythm. Once she feels her heartbeat settle in her chest and the shaking in her limbs reduce to fine tremors, she stands, testing her way to the kitchen.

Mishann is there, humming a quiet song and bustling about with all the familiarity of a ranger in their preferred territories. When Starkness appears at the door, she doesn’t startle or make a fuss, just gives a little laugh. “Hello there, stranger. Come for the food? You’re a little early yet.”

“I want to help,” Starkness confesses, voice quieter than normal, and she hates how it sounds like a confession. She just doesn’t want to be helpless.

Mishann hums, then nods. “Alright then. About three feet to your left, there’s a bit of dough rising - check the stretch, then give it a good, solid second knead.”

Starkness nods, and lo and behold, the bread waits for her in a cloth-covered lump on a board. She feels around the space for a jar of flour to dust the board, and a quiet hand nudges it closer to hers when Mishann sees her questing hand. Starkness checks the stretch of it - it’s good, hearty bread, and it’s been resting nicely for a while, and stretches thin in her hand without breaking early. She pulls it off the board, dusts her space, and begins kneading.

She must be too used to campfire fare, because Mishann comes over to correct her gently more than a few times - “Push, then rotate, quarter turn each time. Don’t dust the board again, you don’t need it, I promise. Don’t stretch it too far in the knead.” - but after a while, she gets the rhythm, and Mishann inspects her handiwork.

“Not too bad,” she says, a smile in her voice. Starkness feels a quiet bead of pride well in her chest -

_ “Thank you, dear,” says Shaile, a smile in her voice. Starkness feels a quiet bead of pride well in her chest as she reaches for the tattered cardigan by the door to hand to her mother. When she takes her mother’s hand, it’s still dusty with flour from her work as a baker. _

Starkness leaves the bread on the counter and pushes her way out of the room, past the couch, and outside.

Her heart is beating fast in her chest, adrenaline-quick and rabbit-scared. She swallows down the scream in her throat. Instead, she whistles for Gathus.

He flutters down to her arm with ease, and she holds him close to her heart. He doesn’t complain. He just nuzzles into her chin, accepting the worry and fear and heartache as his own.

“I can’t trust it,” she whispers to him, and it feels far too loud in the quiet stillness of evening.

Gathus says nothing. He only sits quietly on her arm, pressed against her chest, and warbles a little note of concern.

When she goes back in, hours later, there’s a plate waiting for her on the living room table, covered by a cloth to try and keep it warm. She eats it, tasting nothing, and lays down on the couch to sleep.

* * *

It becomes a rhythm. She’s never had this, not even when she lived on the road with Tyrael and Sprout, when it was the three of them against the world a universe away, searching for T’s mom and Starkness’ revenge and Sprout’s - well. Sprout was always just sort of there, keeping them safe.

She’s coaxing life out of a brittle, yellowing leaf, doing her best to make it grow. She sighs, pulls a knife from her belt, and cuts the dying branch away. No sense in trying to keep what’s dying. She keeps one ear turned toward the house as she works outside. There’s been visitors over today - the infamous kids she keeps hearing about but hasn’t seen in the month she’s been here. Maybe Patrin was keeping them away on purpose. She’s not exactly friendly company. She wouldn’t blame him for it. She doesn’t know if she can handle seeing children, not when she thinks of - of -

She breaks the limb into smaller pieces and scatters them on the ground, moving to the next plant. She drags the little basket with her that’s already nearly full of brilliantly ripe vegetables, more than a few overripe. She’ll tell Mishann to make preserves out of them, make them keep.

She hears the kid before they even realize they’re thinking about coming outside, edging toward the back door to the garden, away from the noise of the other children and Mishann and Patrin dancing among them like old hats at this particular song. The little footsteps are soft on carpet, then light taps on stone, and solid, tiny thunks on dirt as they plod through the door and into the backyard.

She hears them stop when they realize she’s here, but her back is to the door and her head is turned just so to give the illusion that she’s not paying attention. She keeps working. The child grows bolder, stepping closer past squash, cucumber, tomato. They totter past mint and creep through basil.

“Watch your step,” she warns, second before their foot crashes through the parsley, and they freeze and backpedal into rosemary. Starkness shoots out a hand to catch them by the lapels before their other foot destroys the poor herb further.

The two of them are stuck in limbo for a moment, before suddenly: “Are you _ blind _?”

She bites back her immediate reaction of _ fucking astute, genius _ barely a moment before she gets it out. “F-fantastic observation, kid.”

“Were you going to say a curse word?” they ask as Starkness pulls them upright and lets go of them as quickly as she can once they’re stable on their feet.

Starkness bites back another terrible response. Patience. _ Patience. _ “Maybe. Why are you out here?”

“It was loud,” the kid says, and they even sound a little sheepish about it.

“Alright.” She turns back around, ear to the house, and continues.

“How do you garden if you’re blind?”

She thinks about ignoring them. Thinks for long enough that the kid maybe thinks they’re being ignored, and so they tap her on the arm -

\- her arm lunges out, quicker than thought, and she just barely stops short of backhanding them. The kid is quivering, suddenly terrified.

Starkness pulls her hand back. Turns around. Breathes once, twice.

“Please don’t hit me,” the kid says, small voice terrifyingly familiar, and Starkness feels guilt like ice in her stomach.

“Sorry, kiddo. Maybe you should go back inside.” She pulls her hand away slowly, careful to not startle the kid further.

Funny enough, they don’t. They just stand there, awkward near the bruised rosemary. Starkness doesn’t speak again.

They come up next to her, edging close, like she might hit them again. Guilt claws up her spine.

“Are you lonely?” The kid’s question is honest. Starkness sighs. At least she didn’t scar them.

“Yeah,” she sighs, and the kid seems to take that as tacit invitation to sit next to her and watch her work.

“Why did you almost hit me?”

“You touched me.”

“You touched me first,” they respond, and Starkness almost chuckles. Instead, she shakes her head and sighs.

“Stopped you from falling. That’s different.”

“I wouldnta fallen,” they pout, and now she really does chuckle. They puff up further. She hears them shuffle around, sitting with their back facing her, as if their attention is a gift she has rudely snubbed.

“You know I can’t see you, right?” she snarks, and they huff even louder and don’t turn around.

She keeps working, examining the feel and age of leaves on the pepper plant in front of her. She coaxes one leaf back to life, infusing it with a little whispered magic, and she can hear the kid shuffle to face her again as she does.

“How did you do that?” they whisper.

She grabs for another dying leaf. “Doesn’t always work.” She tries again. The whisper comes, the tug of life, but the edges stay brittle and crumbly, and the center is withered and limp. She cuts the leaf.

“Is that one dead?”

“Yeah,” she says, and lets it drop.

* * *

Starkness breaks a plate.

She’s alone in the house. It’s been three months of living in the same house with Patrin and Mishann, visits from children, visits from Unavu - she’s alone in the house right now, because Mishann is out collecting laundry and Patrin is working and she’s broken a plate. She doesn’t understand why she can’t move. She’s never broken a plate before. She only had one before -

She shuts it down. She doesn’t know why she’s thinking of _ before. _ She doesn’t know why she keeps thinking of _ before _. She’s lost again and she’s alone in the house and the plate is broken and she’s not going to be able to eat because she broke her plate.

She hears Mishann open the door, and it breaks her stupor into action, and she holds up her hands, patting her sides for knives that aren’t there, reaching at her back for a bow that is not there -

“Oh. What happened?” Mishann pads over, and she tuts. “Ah, never mind. Be careful, dear. I’ll grab the broom.”

Starkness freezes. “What?” she croaks out, quiet and afraid.

“It’s just a plate, dear,” Mishann says, and bustles out to set the laundry down and grab the straw broom.

She listens to Mishann move around her, sweep up the broken pieces, and take them outside with the trash. When she comes back in, Starkness is still standing in the kitchen. She tracks Mishann’s movement carefully.

Mishann moves to the washbasin, scrubs her hands clean. She moves to the counter, grabs a few clinking jars and bags, sets them on the counter. A bowl or two. Begins measuring out ingredients.

She’s not -

Starkness flees the room and hides in the garden for the rest of the night. She viciously prunes the garden, ruthless in her snipping. She hears Patrin come in later, hears Mishann say a few things to him in low tones. She doesn’t go back inside for dinner. She broke the plate.

When she goes back inside, after she hears them both settle down for bed, she walks back in. When she feels around on the couch, there’s a plate waiting for her. It’s got crunchy bread and well-cooked beans, two thick slabs of ham and a few spears of asparagus.

She sets it on the table. She tries to sleep. She gets up, takes the plate outside, and whistles for each of her beasts in turn. She feeds a piece ham to Goldrinn, the other to Lockheed, the crunchy bread to Gathus, the asparagus spears to Titan, and the beans to Belle. Fury snorts and shakes his head when she tries to offer him food. She grabs a blanket and settles into Goldrinn’s fur - Titan settles over her legs, and Belle keeps a tentacle over her side at all times. Gathus takes up perch in a nearby tree, and Fury and Lockheed circle in the sky, high above the clouds, watching and waiting for the sunrise.

* * *

When she goes back inside in the morning, no one mentions the plate.

* * *

It is five months in when she asks: “When should I leave?”

“When you’re ready.” Patrin is with her in the garden. She doesn’t go outside except for the garden in the backyard. Patrin stops, looks at her, sets his trowel down. “Why do you ask?”

Starkness stays silent. She would always leave. The illusion will break eventually. Maybe her delusions would have some idea when.

“Starkness, why did you ask me when you should leave?” he asks, setting his trowel down and turning to face her.

Starkness doesn’t acknowledge it. She continues examining the branches and stems and leaves by touch and scent. After a long moment, she answers. “You don’t - this isn’t real, is it?” She sighs, pressing the heels of her palms against her blind eyes, pressing against the stinging wetness that’s suddenly appeared that she doesn’t want to face. Not right now.

Patrin sighs. “You don’t have to explain, Starkness, but -” He shuffles where he kneels, picking up the trowel and pressing it into the soil, digging out another small home for one of the seedlings next to him. “We want you here. I know you don’t trust it, but we do.”

Starkness keeps her palms pressed to her eyes. “Why?” The question is small, voiced light in the air, as if dragged from her throat against her will. She wants to swallow it back down as soon as she says it, and hates herself a little bit more for being so - _ weak _ . For wanting the lie, _ again _ , like she’s learned _ nothing _.

Patrin places another seedling in the ground, scooping earth back around it and patting it down gently. She can nearly here him search for words in the small, steady motions he makes, each one calculated and thoughtful. “You need help,” he finally says. “Maybe even more than we can give. But you need help, Starkness. And we want to help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” she says instinctively, voice cracking.

“Rule number one,” he retorts, not unkindly, and Starkness bristles.

“I’m not _lying,_” she hisses between clenched teeth, palms still pressed against the rising sting in her eyes. Wetness leaks from underneath the lids, and she scrubs at it to hide it furiously. “I’m not _lying._ I’m being fucking _honest._ I don’t need your help.”

“Why are you still here?” It’s a simple question, and one Starkness isn’t ready for - why is she here? She could leave at _ any time. _ Neither of them would stop her. She has no reason to stay -

Except one. “My blindfold.”

Patrin nods. “It’s been in your pack since you gave it to me.”

Starkness - freezes. She thought he’d kept it. She hasn’t even checked her pack in days, _ weeks _, even -

A laugh barks out of her throat before she can stop it, hysterical. She hunches over, laughing, tears leaking from her eyes, trailing past her palms and down her cheeks. She’s laughing. It’s - it’s funny, isn’t it? She could’ve left. Why didn’t she leave?

_ The house is so empty, Starkness. Don’t worry. I’ll get us something to fill it with. _

Bea’s voice in her ear is just as clear as the first time she heard it, and she cries. “The - house,” she breathes out, voice catching between the heaves of her chest, “empty - gods, it’s so - empty.”

Patrin just hums, scooping into the earth once more with his trowel. “It can be hard, can’t it? Living alone.”

Starkness shakes her head. No, she’s used to that. She did it for years -

Or did she? She was only alone for a year after Bea’s death. Before that, she had Bea nearly all her life. After - after, she had Tyrael, and then Sprout. She’s only ever really been alone for a year - a single year of her life - and even then, she had Gathus.

She’s alone. She’s _ alone, _ and always has been, because it’s _ safer _ that way - except she _ hasn’t _ . She can’t _ handle _ being alone, because she isn’t strong enough, is she? That’s why it worked so _ well - _

She keeps her hands over her eyes, trying to block out the feeling of weakness that chokes her throat and makes it hard to breathe. She forces her chest to work, breathing in and out, feeling tears still leak through her fingers where she’s doubled over.

“You’ve never been alone, have you, Starkness?” Patrin says, and each word feels like a knife, even with all the kindness it’s spoken in. “You’re still not, you know. Even if it feels like it.”

“How do you _ know? _ How the _ fuck _ would you know what it’s like?” she bites out, fury rising like bile in her throat. “I’ve lost her _ twice. _ It’s my _ fault _ they’re all - they got captured, and they were hurt, and it’s my fault she ever died, because I - I wanted it so _ fucking _ much, and I nearly got them all killed - I can’t - I can’t protect them, I - I can’t protect _ anyone-- _”

She can’t breathe. Her chest is heaving, but she doesn’t feel any air in her lungs. All she can feel is the icy certainty that it’s her fault she failed them, and she’ll keep failing them, again and again and again.

“Starkness.” Patrin’s voice is a lifeline, and she feels the anger again, clutches it like a lifeline.

“How the _ fuck _ would you know, Patrin? What it’s like to lose like that? Again and again?” she spits at him, “You’ve got a wife and a kid and everything’s fucking _ hunky-dory _, isn’t it-?”

“Twenty-seven,” he says, and the oddity of it is enough to stop her in her tracks. He’s stopped planting seedlings. When he’s sure she’s stopped talking, he continues. “I had twenty-seven siblings.”

Starkness doesn’t like the tone of his voice. It’s cast low, nearly blank, and Patrin’s never sounded like that. “What...” she starts, but can’t finish her question.

Patrin understands what she’s asking easily enough. “I killed them.”

Starkness - stops. Her brows furrow. Her chest aches from how hard it has to work to breathe. “You-?”

“Yes,” he says, and continues planting.

Starkness wipes at her face, using a sleeve to wipe away the snot and tears. She doesn’t understand. Maybe he doesn’t want her to. She doesn’t care. Something bitter settles in her chest, and before she can stop herself, she’s already speaking. “Guess monsters can hide anywhere, huh, Patrin?”

She knows it’s wrong before she finishes speaking. She wants to eat her own words before they spill from her mouth, but they’re gone before she can stop herself. Patrin freezes, and Starkness instantly feels fear tense her muscles. _ Here it is, _ she thinks, _ the end of the rope _. She shrinks, minimizing the space she’s in, trying to make herself less threatening, even though she’s already tear-streaked and doubled over on her knees in the dirt.

Patrin stands, and she flinches, even though she fights it. He grabs his trowel and the rest of the seedlings and walks back to the house without a word.

It’s a long time before Starkness uncurls, back aching from the position. Her ears are sharp, careful, listening for anything, any hint of movement. Her body moves on autopilot, gathering her own knife and tucking into the sheath at her belt, keeping a careful hand over it as she creeps to the house. There’s a fine shake in her limbs, one she fights to control.

Starkness doesn’t know what - what’s going to happen. She was certain, _ certain _ Patrin was going to - to hit her, or make her leave, or - _ something. _ Something other than just - _ leave.  
_

She presses her ear to the door, listens - she hears nothing except muffled conversation, distant enough that the both of them must be in the kitchen. Far enough that Starkness feels safe enough retreating to the couch in the living room. She opens the door silently, pads into the room on the balls of her feet, steps cushioned by the carpeting, and freezes when the voices are finally understandable.

“She needs so much help, _ sia daariv _,” a voice says, low and deep and oddly hoarse, and she recognizes it as Patrin.

“I know, my love.” Mishann’s voice is low, too, down to a whisper. “She reminds me of you,” she adds, a rueful note in her voice.

“You’re not kidding,” he says, and there’s a sniffle - is Patrin...?

“Oh, darling. What did she say?”  
  
“Old wounds, Mishann. Nothing I haven’t thought before.”

“And nothing I won’t dissuade you from believing _ again. _” There’s the quiet rasp of scales on scales, and Starkness hears a hitched sigh before -

Oh. Patrin is crying.

Starkness goes back to the couch and lays there, oddly numb. She freezes when she hears them both leave the kitchen, but neither of them stop in the living room. One set of footsteps returns, and she hears the clink of porcelain as the dishes are put away. From the way they step, Starkness can tell it’s Mishann.

Eventually, Mishann walks into the living room. She stops at the doorway, leaning against the wall. “Starkness.”

She doesn’t respond, just lays still under her blanket.

Mishann sighs. “Starkness,” she tries again, and her voice is softer. “You don’t have to leave.”

A knot of tension unwinds in her chest, and she nods from her place on the couch. “Alright,” she mutters, voice as hoarse as Patrin’s was. She hates the relief as much as it eases her.

Mishann sighs again, coming over to the couch, and Starkness curls up tighter under the blanket. A quiet hand pats her shoulder, and Mishann doesn’t do more than that, for which Starkness is grateful. “It’ll be alright, little one,” she murmurs, and Starkness feels the knot unwind just a little further.

After a while, Mishann leaves, and Starkness falls asleep with the memory of an empty bed clear in her mind.

* * *

Oriala finds her eight months later.

Starkness is alone at the house today - she’s outside, tending the garden against the cold, keeping the plants alive despite the autumn cold and creeping winter just around the corner. She hears the footsteps first.

“You know your wife is about to have her child, right?”

_ Her _ child, as if Starkness has already given up whatever claim she had on the baby. Perhaps she has - did, when she walked away. She tracks the time in her head - it’s been the better part of a year since she left. Since Lolth died, at least in every way that mattered.

Starkness doesn’t say anything. She just keeps feeling the plants, learning which ones will survive, which ones will not. She can help them stay the winter.

* * *

Starkness doesn’t wake up for a while. Sure, she’s _ conscious, _ but awake is something else entirely. This liminal space is one she knows well. She can find it whenever she thinks too long about killing Mira.

Inside it, she knows, intimately, the death of everything - _ everything _ . It feels like a thousand million billion voices being snuffed out all at once, and it’s always in the back of her mind - except now, when it’s at the fore. She consoles a terrified child, holding their hand as they choke out their last tiny breath. She smooths the hair back from an old elf’s forehead, giving him a pat on the shoulder as he smiles in his sleep and his chest stops moving. She feels the pressure and heat of the death of a star, aeons away by any measure and intimately close in her mind.

All of that, and she lay on the couch in the living room, unwilling to move, white-gold-eyes hazy with unawareness.

A hand on her shoulder breaks her out of it, and it’s testament to how soft she has gone that she freezes, rather than jolts to action. Patrin is looking down at her, she can tell by the weight of his gaze. “Starkness?”

Suddenly, she feels it - an old, old dragonborn, older by any right than he should be, laying on a bed, scales flaking and brittle, smiling wide, wide as his child grips his hand and his wife kisses his snout and he closes his eyes, so pleased, finally _ home - _

She shakes with the force of it, shivering. It’s so damn _ cold _ in here. It’s the beginning of autumn. She shouldn’t feel this _ cold _.

“Starkness,” he says, and kneels next to the couch. She nods in response, tongue too thick in her throat to speak. He waits, patiently, and she swallows past the lump and whispers.

“I think I want to die,” she admits, hoarse. “It’s - either that, or I’ve been dead for a while. It just has to catch up.”

Patrin’s hand doesn’t leave her arm, just rubs a soothing line up and down her arm - and isn’t it a wonder, that she can handle this touch now, after months of Patrin and Mishann casually patting her arm and passing her things and _ hugging _ her - and speaks. “I think you’re afraid of living.”

She rolls that around in her head. Afraid of living? Her mind balks at the thought - she is afraid of _ nothing _ . She is the Emissary of Death. She is entropy, defined. Nothing _ scares _her.

She shoves that away. That’s not - not going to _ help. _ Thinking like that, it’s all well and good for _ surviving _. But it’s -

She thinks of Bea.

_ “Don’t be afraid to love things, Starkness.” She put a soft hand on Starkness’ cheek, and she turns her face into it, kissing open-mouthed at her palm. Bea curls her hand, tips of her fingers petting at her jaw. “It’s okay. You’re allowed to love. And live. I’ll always come back, as long as you want me to.” _

_ You’re allowed to love. And live. _

She exhales. “Yeah. I think I am.”

Starkness can feel the force of Patrin’s smile, and against her better judgment, smiles back.

* * *

Starkness leaves a week later. It’s the only thing she can think to do. She leaves a scattered handful of gold on the table, folds the sheets on the couch into crisp squares, fluffs the pillows, leaves the extra clothes they’d lent her behind. She steps out of the house so early it’s still late, sky dark enough she can’t feel the moonlight on her skin. The air is bitterly cold with autumn-turning-winter.

She whistles, and Gathus cries back hawk-sharp. Again, and again, and again, she whistles, and gets response from each of her beasts, physical and mental calls to arms. Their cries are loud in the night, and there’s no way she hasn’t woken the entire street, but there’s something - there, in her. Not joy, and not entirely healed, but the beginning of something like it. When she closes her eyes, she can feel the air on her wings. The chill of the night on her tentacles. The crisp cold in her lungs, slipping from her snout like drops of living frost. The clack of her talons on cobblestone.

She opens her eyes behind her blindfold. Her beasts can feel it, too. She hears each one stop in front of her, poised and graceful, each of them predators in their own right, and each of them joyful to have their master back once more. She raises her hand, and Gathus lands - her first, her last, her oldest companion. He dips his beak to her forehead as she lowers her hand, and she presses their heads together, reveling in the oldest bond she’s ever had.

She can hear footsteps at their back, and she turns around, placing Gathus on her shoulder. Her pack is heavy on her back.

Patrin stands in the doorway - she can’t even imagine what kind of look is on his face. “Leaving already, kiddo?”

She nods. “I might come back. There’s - something I have to do.”

She can tell he’s grinning at that, even without sight. “I know how that feels. Go do what you need to. Come back soon. Mishann will miss you terribly, though she won’t admit it.” He tosses something at her underhand, and it sails lazily through the air. She catches it without blinking, and feels the weight of it in her hands.

When she opens it and feels its contents, she realizes it’s the gold she left on the table - and then some. She shakes her head, almost smiling. It’s odd for that to feel so easy. She knows it won’t always feel like that, but that it’s easier now is a victory in and of itself.

“Thanks, Patrin.” She tucks it into her belt, tying it securely to her waist. Goldrinn noses up to her palm, wet snout pressing to her fingers, and then walks past her to Patrin.

He says something to Patrin that she’s not privy to, and doesn’t seek to pry. She lets the old wolf have his cryptic conversation in peace. Titan is boundless energy behind her, hopping from one side to the other, excited to move again with his mama. Belle is far more restrained, graceful in her walk up to Starkness - but no less excited in how one of her tentacles curls around her wrist, grateful and pleased all the same. Gathus is poised on her shoulder as always; but now, his head is pressed to the side of her face, nuzzling close in open affection he so rarely shares. Fury and Lockheed are steady presences in her mind, pressing in close enough to muddle their thoughts as one. Goldrinn pads back to her other side, sitting down with the collar of his fur under her hand, and she pets him gladly.

How could she have ever thought she was alone? Starkness wants to laugh. Even if the rest of the world died, she’d always have this. No one can take this away from her. This is her heart split in pieces and given in the most literal sense, her soul in symphony around her. She’ll never be alone again. She never was.

And somewhere, sleeping with their child inside her, is Bea.

She doesn’t say anything else to Patrin as she turns around. There isn’t anything else to say.

She walks away from Wildecliff with the other parts of her soul in tow, and keeps going.

* * *

(Starkness brings Bea by, next time she’s nearby.

A few months later, they bring by Joy, too. Patrin is taken with her instantly. Bea is still glowing with motherhood, and Starkness can’t stop putting her hands on her. Joy is soft and sweet, and Bea says she’s a pale grey everywhere - soft little horn nubs, wide grey eyes, pale grey skin, and - wonder of wonders - little grey winglets. She likes grabbing Starkness’ blindfold and chewing on it with her gummy little mouth. Starkness has never loved something quite so much as she’s loved her child.

Her child.

Joy tugs at her tail where it’s curled over her hand, shoving it between her gums and teething, and Starkness winces and smiles down at the baby in her arms. She feels Bea lean down and kiss Joy’s forehead, and the tug is only mildly painful when Bea eases her tail out of the baby’s mouth.)

**Author's Note:**

> if you'd like more context as to who starkness and bea and anyone else are, please let me know at my tumblr!
> 
> tumblrs: [calebwidogast](http://calebwidogast.tumblr.com) / [kaytewrites](http://kaytewrites.tumblr.com)
> 
> a roll call: 
> 
> people:  
\- starkness van soren: a blind tiefling ranger with more pets than sense. she is jet black, except for her hair (which is white locs) and her eyes (which are white, threaded with gold from an incident with god's blood). Emissary of Death wife to bea. mother to joy.  
\- patrin ruta: an old dragonborn with a lot of history and a lot of love to give. husband to mishaan, father to unavu.  
\- mishaan ruta: a slightly less old dragonborn who is frequently the only adult in the room. best mom award. wife to patrin, mother to unavu.  
\- unavu ruta: a white dragonborn bard/warlock who is the Emissary of Ice and the chosen of constellations. fluent in snark. cares more than she admits. daughter to mishaan & patrin. part of starkness' old adventuring party.  
\- beatrice lovelily: a tiefling sorcerer/cleric who grew up with starkness. she is pure white, except for her hair (which is black curls) and her eyes (which are scleral black). died for a long time. got better. wife to starkness. mother to joy.  
\- joy shimmerleaf: professional baby. adorable grey tiefling. will grow up to be a college of maestros bard, much to starkness' chagrin and unavu's delight. daughter of bea and starkness. 
> 
> best friends/ranger companions:  
\- gathus: a red-tailed hawk who isn't paid enough for this. seeing-eye bird. the first of starkness' companions, and a faithful friend.  
\- goldrinn: a dire winter wolf who moonlights as a Wild God. chose starkness as his ranger. incredibly loyal, and a favorite of joy's.  
\- belle: a displacer beast adopted from an abusive warlord. after the proper care, chose to stay with starkness. secretly loves belly rubs.  
\- titan: a dire owl bear who think's he's a lapdog. raised from infancy after being found as a cub by starkness near his dead mother. loves *all* his mamas.  
\- lockheed: a purple wyvern gifted to starkness as a wyrmling by a deeply affectionate friend. the last of his kind. snarky as hell.  
\- fury: a roc that found his way to starkness through a friend's son and a chance encounter. stayed because starkness asked the right questions. is definitely faster than lockheed, don't let that upstart tell you otherwise. 
> 
> mentioned:  
\- shaile: a black tiefling baker who lost her daughter in the woods a long time ago. mother to starkness.  
\- t (tyrael): the most fun person in the room, always. a half-elf bard/warlock with boundless energy. Emissary of Light. part of starkness' adventuring party.  
\- sprout: the best gnome cleric that ever lived. small of stature, big of heart. Emissary of Life and professional mom friend. part of starkness' adventuring party.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed it, and thank you for reading.


End file.
